, but i was interested in, i think, the real question is what kind of a iraq did the united states leave behind after sacrifice of 145 american lives lost, temperatures of thousands wounded, and hundreds of millions of dollars spent. what was the american policy towards iraq, and what's iraq look like today? that was the question i sought to address, but i covered the entire scope of the war. >> a year op, or, i guess, in december 2011, what had we achieved, and a year on, have we achieved that? >> well, by the time of -- by december 2011, there was a number of elections in iraq which was to the good, but iraq had not fully become a democracy in the sense there was not a peaceful transfer of power from the current regime led to another prime minister. that's a true test of a democracy is whether there's not merely an election, and russia has elections, i serve there, but whether there's an election, another candidate wins, and power is handed over to that candidate. iraq is in the at that milestone yet. what we had in december 2011 was a relatively stable iraq, a lot of hopes, but, i thi
